


swansong

by kyrilu



Category: De vilde Svaner | The Wild Swans - Hans Christian Andersen, Halfway People - Karen Joy Fowler
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: The king knew her as his mute and mysterious maiden, a creature of the forest. I knew her as my one and only laughing sister.
Relationships: Sewell | The Queen's Brother/The Queen (Halfway People)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	swansong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onedogtown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onedogtown/gifts).



**i**.  
The king knew her as his mute and mysterious maiden, a creature of the forest. I knew her as my one and only laughing sister.

 **ii**.  
When we were younger, my parents gave my sister a marvelous picture book. It was written in elaborate script and illuminated in vivid colors. I used to read it to her, tracing the words with my small hands, and she would listen with her blue eyes wide.

Later, I met a woman by the sea. As I shivered, she told me stories of the sea and of summer, and I thought of the tales that my sister and I read, long ago. Warm hands and warm words.

 **iii**.  
“I see you everywhere,” my sister told me, tracing my wings with her thumb. I had carried her across the sea, me and my swan brothers together, and we had chosen to rest in the mountains.

My brothers had gone out to hunt for fish, while I watched her and found her a bed of wildgrasses to sleep upon.

“I mean it,” she said, when I shook my beak. “It sounds silly, but you’re everywhere, Sewell.”

She told me: Every flower she saw in the forest reminded her of the makeshift crown I had crafted for her in the palace gardens, long ago. Every beam of sunlight was the feeling of my mouth on her cheek and my hand on hers.

 **iv**.  
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to me, as our elder brother explained to the king her innocence and our misfortune. “I thought I would have more time.”

I was still staring at my stiff and unsteady single wing, a limb of downy white and brittle bird bone. The transformation was a shock; I had collapsed on the unburnt pyre on shaking legs, while the mob around had gasped and whispered.

She bent down and took me into her arms. Her hands, nettle-coarse and bleeding, clutched my feathers, staining them with traces of red. 

I said her name in a voice unused to human speech. I said her name again. 

“It isn’t your fault,” I said, raspy. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you to make theirs first.”

 **v.**  
At the king’s behest, the Archbishop instructed the kingdom to pray for me. They made songs about me, the half-swan brother, cursed and burdened and on the verge of wilderness.

I cared not for their prayers and their songs. I only cared for my sister, who was brought up from her cell and returned to her own quarters, given bandages to cover her wounds, and praised for her newly learned royal roots.

 _What a foolish kingdom_ , I thought. I stood on the palace balcony, looking up at the stars. Not too long ago, I had been flying there among them. 

I had dreams of being buried in feathers. They ate at me with their softness, overtaking my other arm, my shoulders, my chest. My mouth elongated and my feet became warped and webbed.

Now, I wore a deep violet cape that covered my remaining wing.

“Sewell.”

I turned around. It was my eldest brother. Being human suited him, a sword at his hip and posture straight. 

“Are you all right?” my brother asked. “We’ve all been worried about you. You haven’t been coming down to dinner.”

The palace had lush banquets every night, plates filled with meat and vegetables and sweets. 

“I’m all right,” I said, softly.

“Maybe there will be a way,” my brother said, nodding his head toward my hidden wing. “We live in a strange world of magic and miracles. And I’m sorry, we’re all sorry, but—”

“I know,” I said. “We’re alive and we’re together.”

The curse had broken, and we were free of our wicked stepmother’s influence. Yet life had not returned to the idyll of our childhood; it was not all sunbeams and flowers. I was nearly made whole again, but there was an elusive happiness that I could not reach.

 **vi**.  
I met my sister in the garden. She wore an elegant dress befitting a queen, wreathed in a golden crown. She touched my face with her scarred hands, tracing the line of my cheekbones and chin, and she said, “Are you angry at me?”

“Never.”

“Then why don’t you talk to me, Sewell?”  
  
“You know why."

She fell silent.

“What can he give you?” I said, bitterly. “Fancy clothes and glittering jewels. A palace, a throne. But, my sister, he would have burned you alive.” 

“He is kind,” she said, haltingly. “He – apologized, and he told me he had truly wanted to protect his kingdom from witchcraft. He’s cared for me, for us.” 

“I want to leave this place.”

It was suffocating. I was used to wide-open skies and boundless seas. I was used to sprawling forests and towering mountains.

My sister looked at me with her bright blue eyes. “When we were children, our stepmother took away our food and gave us nothing but sand. You stole bread from the castle kitchens for us, and she told Father. He hurt you."

She said, “Do you know why I’m staying, Sewell? It’s because I’m the queen, and I can speak now. I will try to ensure that you – that our brothers – will never be hurt again. I must combat the Archbishop’s influence and make our lives, the lives of everyone in the kingdom, better."

I closed my eyes. I could hear the intensity in her voice. She never gave up, this girl who cut her hands with nettle, and I knew, then, I could never convince her to leave.

But I wanted to tell her: _What can he give you? More dresses, more gems, more finery. Elise, I helped you fly._

 **vii**.  
The king said: “The Archbishop knows a cure to your curse. He’s prayed to the heavens, and he’s been presented with a solution.”

He told us, me and my sister and our brothers. All I could do was walk out the door when he finished.

“I will not do it,” I said, when my sister found me in the palace gardens. “I know you think highly of him—”

“Sewell—"

“I will not butcher myself,” I said, softly. “I won’t cut this off and replace it with anything, even if it’s the finest crafted extension made by the world's best skilled blacksmith. Even if it was bestowed on me by God Himself--"

"Sewell!" 

"I'm sorry," I said. I shed the cloak and revealed my wing. "I remember flying. I know in my bones when the seasons begin to change."

"He meant well," my sister said. "It's the Archbishop whispering in his ear again. But of course, it's dangerous. I won't let them cut you open."

"You didn't stop him making that request. You can't control him." I turned my head up to sky. "Winter's approaching soon, and I think I'll look for summer."

"You're leaving."

"For now."

 **viii**.

I returned from the sea, drawn to her still. In the palace gardens, I held her, and I said her name like a man would, like a swan would, full-throated and unyielding. 

She told me stories of the forest that she had grown up in without me.

_I dreamed of you. I dreamed you came back to me one summer day and told me how you had broken the curse. You played a song for me on a wooden flute; you held my hand like you did when we were children. You gave me a blanket of swan feathers, and we huddled under it in the little cottage as a thunderstorm raged outside. You kissed me on the mouth, Sewell, you kissed me and didn't stop kissing--_

And I did now. My Elise mine, my sister princess, my queen. She had dropped the heavy crown from her head, and she had a daisy threaded in her hair.

The king gave her gold, silver, and sapphires. I gave her the love of an undying summer, the love of a man who loved her since he was a boy, young and laughing. 

**ix**. 

On the deck of the the ship, the sailors closed upon me, their swords drawn. Their eyes were dark and they spat prayers at my feet.

I thought of something my sister told me.

_When I left the forest, I found the sea. I waded in the waves, and I knew that the sea would carry me to you._

I unfurled my single wing and dove into brilliant blue.


End file.
